CIA aiding Syrian rebel forces

A small number of CIA officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which opposition fighters will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to US officials and Arab intelligence officers.

The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition were being funnelled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said.

The CIA officers had been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups, a senior US official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbours would do so.

The clandestine intelligence gathering is the most detailed known instance of the limited US support for the military campaign against the Syrian government and is part of Washington’s attempt to increase the pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, who has escalated his deadly crackdown on civilians and militias battling his rule.

With Russia blocking more aggressive steps against the Assad government, the US and its allies have turned to diplomacy and aiding allied efforts to arm the rebels to force Mr Assad from power.

By helping to vet rebel groups, US intelligence operatives in Turkey hope to learn more about a growing, changing opposition network inside Syria and to establish new ties. “CIA officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people," said an Arab intelligence official who is briefed regularly by US counterparts.

US officials and retired CIA officials said the administration was weighing additional assistance to rebels, such as providing satellite imagery and other detailed intelligence on Syrian troop locations and movements. It is also considering whether to help the opposition set up a rudimentary intelligence service. But no decisions have been made on these or even more aggressive steps, such as sending CIA officers into Syria itself.

The struggle in Syria has potential to intensify as powerful weapons flow to both the Syrian government and rebels. President
Barack Obama
and his top aides are seeking to pressure Russia to curb arms shipments such as attack helicopters to Syria, its main ally in the Middle East. “We’d like to see arms sales to the Assad regime end because we believe they’ve demonstrated that they will only use their military against their own civilian population," Benjamin Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said after Mr Obama and his Russian counterpart,
Vladimir Putin
, met in Mexico on Monday.

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Spokesmen for the White House, State Department and CIA would not comment on any intelligence operations supporting the rebels, some details of which were reported last week by The Wall Street Journal. Until now, the public face of the administration’s Syria policy has largely been diplomacy and humanitarian aid.